Email Writing Activities

As communication becomes electronic, email skills are gaining importance.

Letter writing has always been an important activity and focus of study for children in school, but in the electronic age, letter writing is losing importance and emails are taking its place. As a result, email writing skills, while new to many classrooms, are an important fundamental skill for students to learn.

Getting Started

The most important focus for a student venturing into cyberspace is establishing reasons to write. EPals (see resources) is a website to help students get in touch with other students around the world. A useful activity is to ask your students to each pair up with someone from another city. Give students a goal, such as gathering information about their e-pal's city. Also ask them to write emails at specific times and provide an outline of your expectations.

Address Books

Address books are important for email users. Many emails are long and difficult to type accurately, especially for young children, so make it easy on them and teach them how to use address books. By entering the email once, and confirming they have the correct combination of letters and words, they don't risk making mistakes during further communications. This exercise has the bonus of teaching organizational skills at the same time.

Travel Project

Tell the students to pretend they are going on a trip. Have each individual choose a country they would like to visit. Ask them to think about what they will need to plan ahead for: hotels, car rentals, museums and so on. When they each have a short list, instruct the students to find the correct email addresses and write letters to the appropriate people requesting reservations or information about any required services.

Talking to Classmates

Have your students find partners in class and write emails to their partners. Help them brainstorm a list of questions they can use. Tell them to write emails that introduce themselves and pose three or four questions. For the next class, give them time to answer the questions and send the replies to their partners. You can also use this opportunity to teach them about cc'ing an email by having them type your email address in the CC box for their correspondence.

References

• Hardin County Schools: Email in the Classroom
• Teaching English: Email Writing

Resources

• ePals: Global Community